Transitions
by Snapdragon76
Summary: On a sunny Autumn afternoon, Barbara Gordon reflects on the past, present... and the future.


She stood in the front of her apartment building, doing her stretches before her morning jog. It was Autumn, and she loved Autumn. The cool, crisp air, the smells of wood-burning fires, the crunch of leaves. Autumn was always her favorite season.

Dick had told her once her hair reminded him of Autumn.

She smiled inwardly to herself as she set off on her jog. She thought of him more often now. Not that she hadn't thought of him before, but with everything that happened, her memories would drift. Wonderful memories.

Maybe that's all it would be. Wonderful memories.

There was always a push and pull to their dynamic. Flirtations, closeness, first kisses, fumblings in the dark.

Then he needed to go and become his own person. She understood. Batman casts a very long shadow.

So he left and became Nightwing. She stayed. They kept in contact every now and then, but it wasn't the same.

Then there was the acrobat.

She still felt a twinge of jealousy whenever she thought of Raya. Not that she wasn't perfectly nice and friendly towards her. When they were eventually introduced, she found she quite liked the girl. She always ignored the way her heart clenched whenever she saw them together.

Bruce had told her he'd come back eventually. Besides, the circus was in his blood. He wanted it to succeed. He needed it to. It felt like a way he could connect with his birth parents again.

He did. After the Night of Owls and Raya's tragic death, and the aftermath of the circus leaving for good, he was a shell of who he was. She hated seeing him like this. He managed to get back under control with some advice from Damian, of all people. He was back to his old self soon enough.

Things fell into the same pattern as before. Flirtations, innuendos, exploding in one another's arms.

Then came the bullet.

The bullet that nearly shattered her spine and her dreams.

He was by her side all the time. She saw how much it hurt him, to see her like she was. It hurt her as well.

She started pushing him away. She didn't want him to see her like this, broken and hurting. The physical pain eventually subsided, but the emotional pain liked to linger. She needed to put her broken pieces back together again and she didn't need him to see her when all she wanted to be was to be strong again.

She tried to find a new purpose. A new way to make a difference. Sure, she couldn't be Batgirl anymore, but she had skills. She had a brain, and she knew how to use it. Being a librarian was more than just shuffling dusty books around. It was being a gatekeeper of information. And a gatekeeper she could be.

To his credit, he never pitied her. When the news made her the poster girl for coming through adversity, she balked. She never wanted to be the poster girl for anything. Especially since she was nothing more than a pawn in making her father suffer. She'd hated that most of all.

Still, she had dreams. Dreams where she was swinging through the air, wind in her hair, getting the drop on nemeses. When she and Nightwing would patrol together, it was like a dance they did.

Her new role as Oracle was satisfying. She liked being the eyes and ears of the city. Nothing could get past her. No criminals, no escapes, no new superheroes. Nothing.

But still, the dreams persisted. She attributed it to her sub-conscious still coming to grips with her new reality.

She and he would still connect. It was glorious. He'd make her feel things she never thought she would again. As ever, she loved to run her fingers through his soft, thick, black hair and drown in those pools of blue in his eyes. He would kiss a trail of fire on her skin and perform magic with his hands.

She still had dreams of him. And her. They never had to hold back from one another. They knew what they could take, and they pushed themselves to the limits.

The tingle came back in her belly. She was startled by a beeping sound from her watch. The biometrics indicated an increase in her heart rate and breathing pattern. She paused in her jog, allowing herself to regain control. She'd hoped the red in her cheeks would simply be taken as being out in the crisp weather, and not a hitch in her libido.

She was informed of a new experimental surgery performed in South Africa, that would help with those who had suffered spinal injuries. Since her spine wasn't severed, she was an ideal candidate.

Maybe, just maybe, the dreams would finally stop.

Besides, she thought, if it worked for her, maybe it'll work for others as well. Give them a new start, if they so wanted. She could be a guinea pig for that.

It worked. It was a long road to recovery, but recover she did. She spent the year following retraining herself to do things she used to do as Batgirl all over again. She had good muscle memory. And she was determined.

Then the guilt came. The guilt of being able to walk and run and leap again, when there were others who still couldn't. Who still saw her as a champion of those who suffered other disabilities. Who was she to let all of those people down?

She'd redouble her efforts. Keep trying. Keep doing. She was Batgirl again, and she wasn't going to let anyone or anything take that away from her again. Not her own fears, or any outside force.

Then he was taken. And exposed. And then he was gone. For good. She went to pieces. Knowing what she felt for him, how she'd always felt for him, and then he was gone. It didn't seem right. He was so good, so decent. She'd cried inconsolably in her father's arms. Even her father, as close to him as she was, didn't understand just how much Dick meant to her. Means to her.

She had to move on eventually. She'd moved away. To a new part of town. She threw herself into her schoolwork, her crimefighting. It's what he'd want. It's what she needed. She was still coping with his death, and her own trauma when her brain was fighting back against her.

Then he appeared again as if he were a ghost. He'd been undercover, he explained. He wanted to tell her, but couldn't, he said. The nerve. She'd spent so long on moving past her feelings for him and trying to get a grip on her life. She had even begun seeing people.

But who was she fooling? No one would ever compare to him. The secrets they shared. The love they shared. The life she wanted to share.

She wanted to scream at him, to punch him even. But, she saw the conflict in his blue eyes, and she melted, like always. He had that effect on her. She could open up her soul to him and she knew she'd be safe.

It was as though the fates kept tearing them apart, however. She knew that being a superhero and having a personal life wasn't exclusive. There are those who do it. Who more than they could pull it off? They knew the ins and outs like no one else. They didn't have secrets between them… or so she had thought. Before the whole Spyral and Agent 37 mission.

They came together again after Bruce and Selina's wedding was called off. There was a honeymoon suite waiting to be used, he'd said. Why not use it?! She needed some comfort that night. He was always able to provide it. They talked. It was overdue. They saw a future together, they just didn't know when. They were young yet. They had time. She hoped.

When they made love together later, it was electric, like it always had been. They knew each others' bodies like they had made the maps to explore one another. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle. She felt like herself again. He could do that. She always knew where she stood with him.

Then came the bullet.

The bullet that came out of nowhere and caressed the side of his head. That left him damaged. Broken. Like she had been. When she thought she'd have no more tears to give, there came more when he didn't recognize them. They were all strangers to him. His own family were strangers. He'd taken to calling himself Ric. She'd seen him a few times. Hair shorn. Scar standing out on the side of his head, like a wicked, cruel smile. He didn't need them anymore. He didn't want them anymore.

There was a girl. Of course, there was always a girl. Bea, her name was. She was a bartender at the bar 'Ric' hung out at now. He hung around bars now. Strange.

Bea seemed nice. She was a good, honest worker, who had led a hard life, but was now living her life on her own terms. And, she was pretty. Yes, she liked Bea. And, she knew that maybe that's who he needed right now. When Bea asked what she meant to Ric, she had to laugh. It was either that or cry again. And she wasn't going to let herself cry again. Not if she could help it.

He had driven her back to town. He called her Babs again. Even if he wasn't Dick anymore, even if he never would be again, she still wanted to see him. See how he was doing. He told her it meant a great deal to him that she had been there for him in the hospital during his recovery, trying to make the pain go away. She'd made him believe that things would maybe, just maybe, be OK.

And she thinks so too. Maybe, just maybe, things will be OK. She'd done research on Traumatic Brain Injuries. She'd read about amnesia. There were things that didn't quite add up. Something that might have to do with outside forces trying to gain a foothold somewhere they didn't belong.

If Barbara Gordon was one thing, she was a fighter. And she was gonna fight for the people she loved. One way or another. A movie she watched once told her something she never forgot.

"It'll all be alright in the end. And if it's not alright, then it's not the end"


End file.
